7/13/16 Report - Scoops and Other Recovery Techniques For Various Difficult Situations.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of TreasureBeachesReport.blogspot.com.

Alternate Scoop Design For Deeply Buried Targets In Shallow Water.

A couple days ago I mentioned a target that was too deep for me to recover. Deep targets in the water and near the water can be difficult to recover.  Most people live and die by the scoop even though there are other good tools and techniques that can be effective.

The scoop on scoops is that the technology hasn't changed much in decades. There are some that are bigger and there are some that are stronger, but they really haven't changed much.

There are a variety of types of scoops, but they all work pretty much the same.  The scoop can be bigger or smaller and maybe shaped a little differently, but that is about it.

Years ago I described the benefits of having a wood handle and the disadvantages of metal handles. You don't see many scoops with wood handles, but a few manufacturers now offer scoops with wood handles.  I'm surprised more people don't use them.

It can be very difficult to recover deeply buried targets in soft or silty sand especially when there are currents.  Sometimes a scoop just won't work.

One method that will work at times is using your scoop like a hoe and fanning with it.  You can put down your detector, turn your scoop over and frantically hoe with it.  It can be tiring but you can really move a lot of sand that way.

If you are working in loose sand or silt and currents, trying to get too much sand in your scoop can actually work against you.  If you lift a heavy scoop full of sand out of a depression quickly, it will cause currents that suck the surrounding sand back into the hole.  Lifting a full scoop quickly will also cause the some of the sand and possibly the target to fall off the front or top and back into the hole. There are techniques to reduce that effect.  I've discussed those before.

After assessing the situation and getting a good idea of where the target is, you might choose another technique that often works well.   Put down the detector and scoop, get down on your knees and work your hand down through the sand and feel for the target.  This often also works very well on the beach when the target is under the water table.  This technique is not as easy when there is a layer of shells.  Be careful not to cut your hand on glass or other sharp things. You might be surprised by how easy it is to work your hand down to feel the target.

One technique I prefer is foot fanning.   You can move a lot of sand, as well as shells and rocks and other things - even when the bottom is packed rock.  Foot fanning, is one of my favorite techniques when a lot of sand needs to be moved to get to the target in water.  It can be tiring.

Some of the best hunting you might ever find occurs when there is a rock bottom.  Most other techniques can be nearly impossible when that happens.  Fanning will pick the sand up from between the rocks, and then the loosened rocks will come up.

Again you have to be careful.  A fishing lure can pop up and stick in your foot.  Therefore it is best to have some type of foot wear.

In every case, determining the targets location, depth and size, will help a lot.

If you are wading and have a long handled scoop, use the handle to support yourself, and then frantically fan with one foot until you have moved enough sand.

One challenge for recovering deep targets with a scoop in moving shallow water is getting the scoop to penetrate into the sand far enough.  I've found that I can wiggle the scoop as I push it in and continue working the scoop down down through the sand.  It will then be tough to pull the scoop out, but it can be done, and if done correctly can get targets from deeper layers.

Just pushing a scoop into the sand doesn't get you very far.  And the hole can refill nearly as quickly as you dig out the sand.

Rock hounds use another type of scoop.  You can see it here to the left.  These are about three feet long.

These are called treasure scoops, but as you can see, they don't have much of a scoop and aren't made for sifting.  They are good for collecting surface finds, but they would also be useful in other situations, such as reaching in under bushes, roots or rocks.

It is difficult to get a regular scoop pushed down through the sand to deeper layers. The type of scoop shown here will penetrate more easily and deeper, but you really have to pinpoint very accurately to be able to pull a small target out.

I won't discuss things like dredging or air lifts now, since detectorists usually can't use those techniques, but I've played with a few different designs specifically designed for recovering deeper targets in difficult situations.

At the top of the post is a illustration showing a tube, much longer than a typical scoop, that can be pushed down into the sand.  I've imagined a screw type mechanism to move the sand and articles up and through the tube, but haven't worked that out.  Probably a more practical method would be to leave the back of the tube open until the tube is suspected to be around the target, then the back of the tube closed before the tube is withdrawn.  That might pick up the material in the tube.  I can think of a couple other ways to try to make that work too.   I'll have to do a little testing.  I have some other ideas I won't mention at this time.

By the way, a rake or tool with tines can work better than a scoop when the target is a chain.

For now, my best overall technique in shallow water, and one that requires no additional equipment, is foot fanning.  Like with every technique, there are some tricks that you can learn to make it more effective.  It is almost always effective, but can require a lot of energy.

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I hope you will respond to the blog post that you will find on the main blog display.

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It sure has been hot.  I'd like to see something change.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/11/15 Report - Small Finds and Recovery Techniques. Book Treasures. A Little More On The Seminoles Wars.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Treasure Coast Beach This Morning.

This is what the beach looked like this morning.  There is still sand accumulating on the front beaches.

The surf was calm, there were however some surfable waves.

Notice anything about that beach? No people!  And I'm showing one of the busiest beaches along a twenty mile stretch.

I heard one South Florida guy whining about all the competition down there.  There is a reason there are a lot of detectorists down there.  There are tons of people that lose good things down there. Even a monkey will quit pulling the a if he never gets anything for it. If you have enough people in the water wearing good stuff - especially active people or people not accustomed to or prepared for the water - there are always some recent drops to be found.  It doesn't take much skill to do that.

Here is a quick video clip showing the surf on the Treasure Coast today.

Most all of the people I did see on the beach this morning were kids trying to learn to surf, along with a few fishermen.

Just noting the differences.  You always have to analyze the situation and make adjustments.

Below are a couple of my small finds this morning.  Both are the type of thing that will slip right through the holes in your scoop.

Two Very Small Jewelry Finds Made This Morning
At The Beach Shown Above.

If you don't know what you are doing, you can waste a lot of time trying to scoop up small items like that.

It is important to first get a good estimate of size and depth.  Familiarity with your detector and testing can help with that.

Once you have pinpointed the item and know about how deep it should be, put the point of your scoop right behind it and try not to dig any deeper than necessary.  Try to get the scoop just deep enough to get the scoop under the target and no more.

I've talked about recovery techniques for deep targets and won't get into that again now.

Good visibility can help with targets like this.  Watch the sand as your scoop comes up.  Watch for any sign of the object as your raise the scoop.  You might see it fall out or off to the side.  Don't get too much sand in the scoop.  If it slides through the hole quickly and you have good visibility, give the sand a toss to the side and watch for any glint from the object on the surface of the sand.

A snorkel mask can be helpful.  Also, very small targets can often be found by feel if the sand doesn't have shells and the sand is pretty stable on the bottom.

In the wet sand today, there was a couple inches of fine sand over top of a layer of shells on the front beach.

In the shallow water, the wave period was long.  I think you'll see that when you watch the video.  The wave would break and then come in over the sand in the shallow water, hit the beach, and then flow back out, so the current would come in over the sand and a few seconds later back out again.  The result was that the top sand in the shallow water would move a little one way and then the other.

I won't get in to other details about how that affects using your scoop.  Some other time maybe.

Sometimes its easier in deeper water,  For one thing you sometimes don't get as much current on the bottom in deeper water.

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I received a couple of great emails last night.  They were jam packed with good information.

Here is the first.  It is from S. W.

There are a couple of original copies of "War in Florida" on ebay. They are going for about $1200.00. There are not too many books that cover the Seminole War. Mostly a page or two in an old book here or there. Did you know one of the main reasons for the Second Seminole War was because the whites would not let the Indians take their slaves west with them and would not pay them for them when left behind. I have one of the best private collections of antique books from the war of 1812 through the Mexican War. Things from this era are not easy to find and are getting out of my price range. ...

I've always liked old books myself.  The market for old books has changed a lot in the past decade or so.  Before old books were as available on the internet as they are today, you could easily sell almost any book that was near a hundred.  Now most old books sell for very little if at all, however there are books that do bring higher prices, like the one S. W. mentioned.

I once was asked by a librarian at one of the local state colleges to look at a private collection that was once donated to them.  They were going to discard all of those books.  There were some very nice and valuable books in the collection, including things like a Mark Twain first edition, many 19th century books, and even an 18th century book.  They had no idea what they had.  I told them those books should be saved.

On the topic of books, here is a rare one.  A copy of The Hobbit (shown above) was recently sold at auction by Sotheby's for 137,000 British pounds, which would be around 200,000 U. S. dollars.

There are very very few fiction books worth that amount.  Most old books are not first editions and most authors do not have a cult following like Tolkien. 

Old non-fiction books can be valuable.  They can be valuable sources of information.
It is fortunate we can access as many as we can for free on the internet.  

Too me, old books, both fiction and non-fiction are loved collectibles.

The issue about the Seminoles owning slaves is very interesting to me because I hadn't heard anything about that until very recently.  Maybe I just missed it somehow, but it seems to me that we usually get a sanitized white-washed politically correct version of history in many modern history books and in our schools.  Only part of the story is told.  That is one reason why it is good to go back and read books that were written by the people that were closer to the actual events.  They have their own perspective, biases, etc. but seeing how they looked at things and wrote about them adds something.  Even the old style of language adds another dimension.

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Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

6/1/14 Report - Mel Fisher Days, Hidden Cash Craze Spreads, Best Target Recovery Techniques & Valuable Secret

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Each year a celebration is held to commemorate Mel Fisher’s famous 16 year search for the Spanish galleon Atocha which led to a $450 million dollar treasure discovery in the waters just off Key West. Events are scheduled from July 10-13 in Key West.

You can find more information and register for all events at www.MelFisherDays.com


The hidden cash craze has spread to cities across the United States.  It seemed to begin in San Francisco where one real estate millionaire hid cash filled envelopes and then provided clues by way of tweets from @HiddenCash.  Other cities are now involved, and it now seems that others have taken to hiding cash too. 

It might have been started by one person who wanted nothing more than to share some wealth, but I'm sure that it will become a method of advertising or promotion.  Below are links to some of the stories on this new craze.

http://article.wn.com/view/2014/05/30/Hidden_Cash_craze_on_Twitter_hits_Tampa/

It was rumored that one place to find hidden cash yesterday (Saturday) was Orlando.  Another Florida city was Tampa.

Check out @HiddenCash, as well as @Moolah Mystery.

Here are more links.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Hidden-Cash-Phenomenon-Twitter-Clues-Lead-to-Envelopes-Stuffed-with-Money-444641.shtml

http://globalnews.ca/news/1365351/vancouver-the-latest-city-to-catch-on-to-the-twitter-cashscavenger-hunt/

http://austin.culturemap.com/news/city-life/05-30-14-company-hides-envelopes-of-cash-in-random-downtown-locales/

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-get-thee-to-hermosa-beach-hiddencash-seekers-20140531-story.html



In the US, credit cards carry a magnetic strip that is easy for criminals to duplicate.   Other countries, I understand, use cards that use microchips instead of the magnetic strips  The microchips are safer. 

Unlike magnetic strip cards that transfer a credit card number when they are swiped at a point-of-sale terminal, chip cards use a one-time code that moves between the chip and the retailer's register. The result is a transfer of data that is useless to anyone except the parties involved. Chip cards, say experts, are also nearly impossible to copy.

I said before that cash is becoming a thing of the past.  It might happen sooner than you or I expect.


The other day I said that I don't dig holes in parks or lawns but instead plug or probe and pop the item out of the ground. 

Detectorists should never leave a public area leaving signs that they were there - other than the fact the area should be cleaner.  And I'd say that real detectorists are pretty good about that.   Most of the  trouble comes from beginners or people that are just giving treasure hunting a try thinking that they are going to dig up a treasure chest or something and can't tell the difference in signals between a coin and a cannon.

Well, plugging can be abused too.   Just yesterday I was watching the TV show Diggers, and one of the fellas on the shows was doing what he called plugging, but the problem was that his "plug" was about a foot square.  That is not what I call plugging.   When you plug, the objective is to take out a whole plug, about the circumference of the target and not much bigger.

Here is a good article on proper recovery techniques.

http://goldpanprospectors.com/files/METAL_DETECTING_RECOVERY_METHOD11.pdf

Another technique taught in that article is "slitting."

It is important to be very careful about how you recover items.   You hear people say that you shouldn't take a knife to a gun fight, well with detecting it is the opposite.  Don't take anything bigger than you absolutely need.   Take a screw driver instead of a shovel.

I'll tell you a secret here.  You don't need a detector to recover an item.   It is not necessary to have a detector with you when you remove an item.  AND, it is not necessary to have a recovery tool with you when you detect.

I don't know if you realize the value of that statement.  I'm sure you didn't hear it before this.   If you get what I am saying, it is worth big bucks.   I'll give you detailed instructions on that some other time.

The one thing I want to leave you with now is this, leave a site looking better than you found it.

And also don't carry around a shovel or anything larger than necessary in a public place such as a park.

Keep a low profile when detecting. 


Today the surf on the Treasure Coast will be up a little, close to four feet.   By Tuesday the predictions are saying that we might get something closer to six feet.  That is getting in close to a surf that could, depending upon other factors, result in improved detecting conditions.   There is a lot of sand that has to be moved though.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net